


The Comedown After the High

by PrincessBethoc



Category: Holby City
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-09
Updated: 2019-03-09
Packaged: 2019-11-14 03:22:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18044537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrincessBethoc/pseuds/PrincessBethoc
Summary: And suddenly the world is small. And it is vast. The sun will explode one day and all will be dead and gone, and yet these tiny moments, they matter.Set after "Powerless."





	The Comedown After the High

Everything ends. Every person ends. Nobody knows that better than he does. His mother, his father, his son, his friends, his colleagues…they end. Sometimes it is clean. It is peaceful. Amicable. They end with love. Sometimes it is horrific. Fraught with deceit and violence. Sometimes there can be no goodbye. Nobody to hear those important final words or see the last ounce of love in a human face. Those are the worst.

His hands shake as he goes to unlock his car door; the possibilities of today…three members of staff could quite easily have died. One had attempted to take his own life. If he wakes up from his current state, that shall have to be tackled head-on. One had been so busy protecting his child he had failed to think of his own health. Hopefully, he has learned he is of no use to his children if he is dead. And one could have died purely out of these circumstances. She shall need to rest for a while.

It might have ended differently. Indeed, given his past experience, Henrik Hanssen had expected Death to visit. After all, Death seems to follow him these days, picking off the people he cares for, one by one.

But today, Death has kept its hands to itself. It had been given every opportunity to pounce, on Iain Dean, on Sacha Levy, on Essie Di Lucca. He should be relieved. Grateful. And yet he feels cheated. Double-crossed. “Henrik?” a voice behind him asks gently. “Henrik, are you alright?”

He cannot answer. How can he? He does not understand his reaction himself, so how can he expect anyone else to understand it?

There’s a darkness in his heart he cannot banish, left there by Death’s absence. It is the comedown after the high. How dare Death do this? It does not need to claim anyone at all to make him suffer.

And suddenly the world is small. And it is vast. The sun will explode one day and all will be dead and gone, and yet these tiny moments, they matter. They cause anxiety and fear. They cause joy and love. Everything spirals out of control and then it shrinks until it no longer looms over the heads of such fragile animals.

Soft fingers take the car keys from his hands. “Everything is okay, Henrik,” she says. “No major disasters.”

He looks down at her; he sees Serena Campbell. And she knows. He knows that she knows. She knows he is falling from the thunder clouds above as they dissolve, and he knows she is waiting for him to crash back down to Earth. “By all accounts, even Connie Beauchamp and Jac Naylor got through today without knives being drawn,” she says with a smile.

This is what she does. She tries to inject a little humour, however dark, into a situation. And it often works. But his head is so filled with the smoke, the smoke that somehow comes without fire, that he cannot fully appreciate it.

She is here. She has taken his keys and he knows she will not give them back until his hands stop trembling. That cannot happen until he gets this knot of confusion out of his gut.

“Tell me, Serena,” he hears himself say. “What did you expect to come of this?”

“I don’t know that I expected anything,” she says honestly. “I tried not to, anyway. All we can ever do is take on what comes to us.”

“Do you know what I expected?”

“What did you expect?”

“I expected someone to die,” he says simply. “Though I played my part well, I have been prepared all day for another death.”

“But no-one has died. Everyone is alive, Henrik.”

He stares at her, waiting for her to understand. It does not take long. It appears to dawn on her like an unwelcome sunrise, her eyes shining as she returns his gaze. “Oh,” she says. The way she says it, anyone would think she has never truly known him before. “Oh. You’ve been preparing yourself for the end of the world, and the world didn’t end. And now you’re left…well, you’re left like this,” she sighs, gesturing her hand towards him.

She leans against the side of his car and looks at the ground for a moment.

“I know what you mean,” she murmurs. “When you expect a catastrophe but it doesn’t happen. There’s nowhere for the panic to go. If someone had died, the panic would have been grief.”

“It converts itself quite easily,” he replies with a nod.

“But panic and relief…”

“I’m sure for many people, those two will convert themselves quite easily as well,” he says.

“But not for you.” She looks up at him with a determined but almost affectionate expression. “And that’s okay, Henrik. The thing is, though, you have to look after yourself. The panic will eventually leave, and then you can be relieved, but only if you take care of yourself. You need to go home. Take your medication. Eat your favourite food. Read your favourite book, since I can’t imagine you being much of a binge-watcher,” she adds with a grin.

He allows her a slight smile in return. She would be surprised – perhaps even shocked – if she were to see his viewing history, and how many episodes he can consume if he is interested enough.

“My point is this: everyone needs to do things that make them feel better,” she says. “Whether it’s a book, or a walk, or a film, or even just sleep, you have to do it. You have to remember how much you loved doing these things before it all went wrong. Death has a way of making you forget that there are things in life that are there to simply be…enjoyed. I learnt that the hard way when Elinor died. And I’m not saying it’s easy. It can be bloody hard. You’ve got to retrain yourself to consciously do the things that used to come naturally.”

She glances down at his hands. He lifts them; they no longer shake.

“Well, that’s a start, I suppose,” he says. “May I have my keys back?”

She smiles and presses his car keys into his now-still hand. “Remember,” she says seriously, “take good care of yourself. One day at a time. That’s all we can do.”

He nods his head. She pats his arm and strolls away.

The world is still small. It is still vast. The sun will still explode.

But tomorrow will come. And it will not be the same as today. The panic is temporary. He can survive panic.

And though he is sure Death still lurks at his back, hunting its prey, it did not take anyone today.

“Serena?” he calls out to her, just as she reaches her car. She turns on her heel to face him. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Henrik.”


End file.
